God Exhales

God exhales

Greeting-

Introduction-

Good Morning Church! If you would flip to Ephesians 5:15-18, we are going to look at our text in Ephesians and then we are going to use some other verses in Ephesians to help us understand the text. First let’s pray over God’s Word.

Prayer

Ephesians 5:15-5:18 Read from Bible

Most think this verse is about the debate of weather a believer should drink alcohol or not- the big debate of abstinence or moderation… but is not.

The verse is about being very careful on how you live your life.

Taking every positive opportunity that is given because the world is turning evil.

It is about being filled with God’s Holy Spirit.

I want to concentrate on believers being filled with the Spirit.

Notice here that unbelievers cannot be filled with the Holy Spirit. It is not an option for an unbeliever. They can be saved- the Spirit of God moves upon their hearts to want to change their heart but an unsaved heart is not filled with God’s Spirit.

Paul actually tells the readers and the Ephesians church don’t be foolish-understand God’s will- Do not get drunk on wine which leads you to do things that are against the things of God .

He says instead of being filled with alcohol that takes you away from the things of God, you should do the opposite and be filled with the Spirit of God.

Paul is not talking to the unsaved but is talking to the church. If you have a choice and you do, be filled with the Spirit of God and not the world.

Abstinence or moderation is not the point- I’ll say this and move on to the text point here- having been in the world I cannot think of one good thing that has come from alcohol.

Someone weather you or someone you know has abused alcohol and it has hurt you or someone you know.

Alcohol only covers hurts and masked feeling that need to be dealt with- the point Paul is making to the church is that is better to be filled with the Spirit of God rather than the world and its vices to hurt us.

Paul tells the church about Christ- “In him (Jesus) we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment- to bring all things in heaven and earth together under one head, even Christ.”

In Jesus we have redemption

He has made known things that use to be mysteries.

One day everything in heaven and on earth will be put under the Lordship of Jesus Christ your savior.

Get this! Ephesians 1:13

“Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession- to the praise of His glory”

As a believer, you belong to Christ, you were bought with a price and that price was his atoning blood on the cross and He has marked you as His and He deposits into believers His Holy Spirit to lead us and guide us and Paul is telling the church why would you want to be filled with the world when you have been bless with an inheritance and have the opportunity to be filled with His Holy Spirit working in our lives. AMEN

What does that look like in a believer’s life?

The best way to explain it

I have a friend… wink. wink… no really I have a friend…who doesn’t let his gas tank get below a half a tank. He will fill it back up. With the price of gas right now I can surely understand wanting to keep it full and not letting it get empty because you almost have to give your first born.

Illustration-

Have you ever ran out of gas? Some have some interesting stories of how they did and what they did to get gas and get back moving. In the seventies when I first started driving- I have done a lot of things but fortunately I never ran out of gas but if you ran out of gas, you didn’t just pull over and phone someone to bring you a gallon of gas. It was before cell phones and at best if you knew where a station was you had to hike it up and get gas and beg someone who had a gas can to put it in. if you were out of town, you had to do that walk of shame up to someone house and knock on the door and ask for some gas. So many stories and so little time of what happens when you show up on someone porch asking for gas. It was a humbling experience you probably don’t want to do often.